Barnett's Magazine (Articles 2033)

In a word, “No!” If somebody today wanted to build an Old School chopper, you could use this build as the perfect template for a truly traditional chopper from the days when Old School was new school. Although they didn’t label it anything but a chopper back then, it’s Old School in spirit and honesty of design. But, it is the intent of the builder that intrigues me the most. He wanted to build a chopper that wasn’t trying to be Old School, it is Old School. Back in the day, this was a real honest-to-goodness radical chopper and something you really didn’t see too much.

I can hear it now rolling over in your head, “What the hell does ‘drastically subtle” really mean?” Frankly, I’m not exactly sure, but those two words combined explain what was going on in my noggin when I first saw Jack Cofano’s photo gallery of Caleb Owens’ 1976 Harley-Davidson FLH dragster/café racer/street tracker/salt flats racer Shovelhead. Then I watched the videos you see below featuring Mr. Owens (especially The Moto Channel one that is one of the best builder YouTube videos I’ve ever seen) verbally dissecting his bike. The longer I watched, I realized the video actually was as much of a look inside his designer’s head as a great nuts-and-bolts mini-feature. The more I understood what it wasn’t, the more I became more and more interested.

When I think of sweet things it usually involves lots of calories and some kind of chocolate. But, every now and then I see a custom that hits my motorcycle sweet tooth and my immediate unthinking response is “sweet.” Like I said, I rarely think of a custom Harley-Davidson that way, but it does happen and it was my first response to this Smoke Out Sporty that’s got more than its fair share of cool stuff going on.

You know you learn something everyday whether you want to or not. Today, surprisingly, it was something I guess I should have known considering it involves adult beverages. I enjoy a good James Bond martini from time to time and occasionally I’ll ask for it “dirty” which just means adding a bit of olive juice to the mix for a different flavor. I never thought about it much as I just pour some straight out of the jar the olives came in. But, here’s where it gets tricky, in a bar, they have bottles of just olive juice minus the olives.

As we all know from checking out Barnett’s Magazine Online, custom Harleys come in all shapes, styles and colors from Sportsters to big wheel baggers and everything in between. It does seem like the Softail Harleys have fallen a little out of favor for custom baggers, but it wasn’t always that way. Not too long ago Softails were the go-to bike for customizing from mild to wild. Yeah, Motor Company Softails prevailed until the big front wheel became the dominant style point of the custom world.

Yes I can! I mean how could anyone and I mean anyone ever claim they didn’t see this eye-popping Harley-Davidson Street Glide that’s been dipped in whatever makes Strokers Dallas’ front man, bike builder and extreme entrepreneur, Rick Fairless tick. Any judge in the country would say “Guilty!” if someone claimed they didn’t see this bike. I mean, how can’t you and if you can’t, you certainly shouldn’t be leaving your house except on foot and even then there’d be some doubts.

A fly on the wall might have overheard a conversation by a couple of garage builders fueled by adult beverages go like this, “Hey, I’ve got a bucket of wing nuts, some diamond plate, and that old basketcase Triumph in the back of my garage. Let’s build a chopper!” To which the other gentleman answers, “Perfect. Let’s do it.” And so it began, a couple of buddies spent garage time and a few more beverages building the quite cool Triumph Bonneville chop that Jack Cofano photographed at the recent Smoke Out 18 in Rockingham, North Carolina, this past June.

Have you ever entered a contest for a motorcycle giveaway? Did you ever win? Did you ever wonder who won? Did you ever wonder where the giveaway bike ended up? If you answered “No!” to all those questions you are either a extremely practical person or you’re a liar. I mean, c’mon, who hasn’t entered a giveaway at one time or another just because you knew this was your chance to win. Somehow and for some reason or a feeling known only to you it was your chance to ride away with a free bike. But, enough time went by and you never got any winning notification and you were glad you didn’t make a big deal out of it or did you?

Everybody knows all about Kryptonite and how it can be fairly dangerous for Superman to be around if Superman actually was around. If the man of steel is exposed to Kryptonite, he loses all his strength, goes weak in the knees and, well, you can guess the rest. Surprisingly, Panheads are my Kryptonite. Whenever I get close to one I too get weak in the knees and begin breathing hard. Yup, like a lot of you Panheads are my Kryptonite and always will be.

If you asked just about any in-the-know Harley freak in the know what special model they dream of owning someday I don’t think it would be anything from Y2K on up. Yeah, the new Harley-Davidsons have gotten to be better and better with each passing year, but they would be more on a wish list versus a dream bike. Dream bikes are something are something to unabashedly lust for and usually involve something vintage. Although a Harley-Davidson Knucklehead might be the most beautiful Harley engine ever, I think the venerable Panhead would win out.

Contrary to popular opinion, actually riding a radical custom bagger can be totally possible if the builder has the smarts and is able to keep their imagination from getting the better of them. If you build enough different styles of big wheel baggers in differing front wheel sizes, you know what really works and what doesn’t if a customer plans to ride it as well as show it. But, more so on the ride-side and nobody should complain about that. Although I sincerely appreciate the work that goes into über-radical show bikes, I love custom bikes that can hit the road just for the hell of it.

Personally I don’t know the young lady, Jennifer Korbisch, from Moncks Corner, South Carolina who owns this brilliant pink bagger, but after seeing her quite over-the-top pink Street Glide, I think I’ve got a bit of a handle on what she likes. I’d guess she’s a pretty fearless person who not only rides motorcycles, but can handle a big wheel bagger while she’s riding alongside her husband, Kevin Ellis. She’s also by no means afraid of a little attention as any young woman riding a pink big wheel extravaganza has to be. I mean, there’s no way in hell any of you would not look at both Jennifer and her bike as she rolled by. Plus, it doesn’t it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell she certainly likes her bling. Hey, she knew what she wanted and got exactly that.

Color splashing is a photographer’s technique that takes a black and white photo or video and adds (usually) a single splash of color to highlight an area or thing(s) they wanted you to see. It seems to have been used often in TV commercials where they’re trying to make what they’re pushing stand out. Even though you might think that’s what’s going on here after looking at the lead photo with it’s purple splash grabbing your attention, it’s not. That’s exactly the way the bike itself looks in real time, the background was just black- and white-ed out like an old photo.The purple splashes are real.

So, you’ve finally stepped up and bought a new Harley-Davidson Street Glide, the bike of your dreams as well as many other bagger freaks. Apparently it’s Harley’s biggest selling model and the sleek and low look appeals to many other like-thinking Harley owners. Your friends, relatives and neighbors have all complimented you on your good taste and the dream seems to have really come true. But, as the months roll on the stream of compliments appears to be drying up. Your tasteful, bad ass black paintwork and factory chrome still gleams with all the polishing you’ve done, but something’s just not the same.

A few days ago, Barnett Harley-Davidson GM, Mark Barnett, posed a question on Facebook if people wanted to see more Triumph choppers and, surprisingly to me, the overwhelming response was in favor of more. Even more surprising was that there were no nattering nabobs of negativity to paraphrase the late motorcycle freak, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew. So kids, here’s one more custom Triumph with a slightly different twist then the one Mark Barnett presented for your approval/disapproval.